Iraqi officials in talks with Sadr group to stop fighting.

This is from SMH.Probably the U.S. was urging Maliki to attack Sadr's militia guaranteeing him backup, a backup that has been increasingly evident. This can do nothing but damage Maliki's credibility such as it is. If the war goes sour again as it probably will unless there is a renewed agreement on a ceasefire this could damage McCain's chances and make it difficult for the Democratic candidate to avoid promising a genuine pullout. Note that Sadr's is not the only militia in Basra just the one whose power Maliki and the U.S. wants to curb. Note that the negotiations are not for the Sadr group to lay down arms but to stop fighting. The ultimatum is obviously a no go.



Iraqi officials in talks with Sadr group to end fighting
Representatives of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the Iraqi authorities have begun talks to end fierce fighting between security forces and Shiite militiamen that has killed several hundred people, an aide to Sadr said on Sunday.

"Negotiations between the Sadr movement and an Iraqi government delegation started last night (Saturday) and are going in the right direction to solve the crisis," Salah al-Obeidi, Sadr's spokesman in the shrine city of Najaf, told AFP.

The talks began hours after Sadr ordered his followers to defy a call by prime minister Nuri al-Maliki to lay down their arms in the southern port and oil hub of Basra, the flashpoint of the brutal clashes.

"These are the first direct negotiations between the two sides to try to resolve the crisis," said Liqa al-Yassin, a Sadrist MP.

It was unclear if the talks had resumed on Sunday.

Both the Iraqi capital and Basra remained under curfew on Sunday amid the deadly standoff between the Iraqi security forces and Sadr's feared Madhi Army, the most powerful Shiite militia in the violence-ravaged country.

Maliki had given a 72-hour deadline to Shiite fighters in Basra to disarm after launching an offensive against them last Tuesday.

The deadline expired on Friday.

"Sadr has told us not to surrender our arms except to a state that can throw out the (US) occupation," Haider al-Jabari of the Sadr movement's political bureau told AFP on Saturday.

The same day, Maliki vowed to press on with his assault in Basra, saying the militiamen were "worse than Al-Qaeda."

"Unfortunately we were talking about Al-Qaeda but there are some among us who are worse than Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is killing innocents, Al-Qaeda is destroying establishments and they (Shiite gunmen) also," he said.

Basra is the focus of a turf war between the Mahdi Army and two rival Shiite factions -- the powerful Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) of Abdel Aziz al-Hakim and the smaller Fadhila party.

The stand-off there has spread to other Shiite areas of Iraq, including the sprawling Shiite neighbourhood of Baghdad's Sadr City, the bastion of Sadr loyalists.

Fighting in Sadr City has killed at least 90 people since Tuesday and the nationwide death toll has crossed 270, including at least 50 in Basra, according to security officials

The two cities of Baghdad and Basra were locked down on Sunday amid round-the-clock curfew for several days.

Pedestrians and vehicles stayed off the streets of the Iraqi capital for a third straight day of curfew, while the oil hub of Basra was relatively calm, residents said.

They however added that two neighbourhoods of Basra had been bombed during night by US or British jets. The two militaries did not immediately confirm the assaults.

US warplanes had carried out air strikes in the city on Friday and Saturday in which several people were killed, Iraqi and US officials said.

But on Sunday, the US military acknowledged that its ground troops had started participating in the Basra assault.

A team of American special forces joined the battle in Basra, combining with Iraqi troops in an operation that killed 22 militants on Saturday, the military said.

The joint operation was in a known "criminal stronghold" in western Basra, a US military statement said.

Earlier US and Bitish forces have said they have been giving air support to operations since Tuesday.

British troops have deployed outside their base on the edge of Basra in support of the Iraqi operations, British military spokesman Major Tom Holloway said on Sunday.

"There are no plans for our troops to enter the city. We are providing other forms of support," he told AFP.

This includes air support and surveillance as well as logistical back-up including refuelling helicopters and supplying ammunition and medical supplies.

The stand-off between Iraqi and US-led forces is the most intense one since 2004, when the Mahdi Army launched a rebellion against American troops in the central city of Najaf.

Other Shiite cities, such as Kut, Hilla, Nasiriyah and Karbala, meanwhile were also quiet Sunday after heavy clashes earlier in the week.

© 2008 AFP

Across Iraq, battles erupt with Mahdi Army

This is from the CSmonitor. This is the end of the ceasefire. Sadr was just about to retire to contemplate for a while when this attack on the Mahdi militia was mounted. Now Sadr is back and leading against the Maliki government and the U.S. The relative calm is now ended. Of course not much attention is being paid to this back in the U.S. or to the fact that the 4,000 mark has now been surpassed in U.S. casualties. Unless the Maliki govt. and the U.S. stand down and stop these attacks there may be a bloody civil war.

Across Iraq, battles erupt with Mahdi Army
Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fought US, Iraqi forces in Baghdad and Basra on Tuesday.
By Sam Dagher | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Baghdad
The Mahdi Army's seven-month-long cease-fire appears to have come undone.

Rockets fired from the capital's Shiite district of Sadr City slammed into the Green Zone Tuesday, the second time in three days, and firefights erupted around Baghdad pitting government and US forces against the militia allied to the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

At the same time, the oil-export city of Basra became a battleground Tuesday as Iraqi forces, backed by US air power, launched a major crackdown on the Mahdi Army elements. British and US forces were guarding the border with Iran to intercept incoming weapons or fighters, according to a senior security official in Basra.

The US blames the latest attacks on rogue Mahdi Army elements tied to Iran, but analysts say the spike in fighting with Shiite militants potentially opens a second front in the war when the American military is still doing battle with the Sunni extremists of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

"The cease-fire is over; we have been told to fight the Americans," said one Mahdi Army militiaman, who was reached by telephone in Sadr City. This same man, when interviewed in January, had stated that he was abiding by the cease-fire and that he was keeping busy running his cellular phone store.

Sadr City residents say they saw fighting Tuesday between Mahdi militiamen and US and Iraqi forces in several parts of the district. One eyewitness, in the adjacent neighborhood of Baghdad Jadida, who wished to remain anonymous, said he saw a heavy militia presence on the streets, with two fighters planting roadside bombs on a main thoroughfare.

Lt. Col. Steve Stover of the Baghdad-based 4th Infantry Division said that in the span of 12 hours Tuesday 16 rockets were fired at the Green Zone and nine rockets and 18 mortar rounds fell on US bases and combat outposts on the east side of Baghdad. A mortar round hit a US patrol in the northern Adhamiyah district, killing one US soldier. A roadside bomb set a US Humvee on fire in Sadr City but all soldiers inside survived. He said clashes broke out between American forces and militiamen when they attacked several government checkpoints in the district and that some of these posts are now manned by both US and Iraqi forces.


Almost exactly four years ago, American forces and Mr. Sadr's loyalists clashed on the streets of Baghdad's Sadr City and the holy city of Najaf shortly after the US shuttered his newspaper for allegedly inciting violence. That round of fighting lasted several months and at one point the Americans were aiming to arrest Sadr, a cleric whose religious credentials come from his father who was widely influential and loved.

The fighting burnished Sadr's standing among fellow Shiites wary of the US occupation. Over the years, the US has repeatedly accused elements within the Sadrist movement of having ties with Iran and even Lebanon's Hizbullah.

After rockets hit the Green Zone Sunday, US commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus said the weapons had been provided by Iran.

On Tuesday, Rear Adm. Greg Smith, spokesman for US-led multinational forces in Iraq, blamed the elite Quds units of Iran's Revolutionary Guards for supplying the 22 107-mm and 122-mm rockets that hit the heavily fortified area of Baghdad that is home to the US Embassy.

"We believe the violence is being instigated by members of special groups that are beholden to the Iranian Quds Force and not Sadr.... Although we are concerned, we know that very few Iraqis want a return to the violence they experienced before the surge," he says.

Admiral Smith says US and Iraqi forces were facing two distinct enemies in Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and the Iranian-trained and supplied special groups. But he adds, "AQI is still Iraq's No. 1 enemy."

There is growing concern, however, that Iran could respond to such US accusations. "This is pretty serious, and if the Iranians do not back down rapidly this will escalate," says Martin Navias, an analyst at Britain's Centre for Defence Studies at King's College in London. "The US has a number of problems with Iran, mainly the nuclear program and its behavior in Iraq. There are many people in the Bush administration who want to hit Iran."

While Iraqi troops fought with Shiite militants in Basra Tuesday, a contingent of Coalition troops, including British and US forces, mobilized at Basra's border with Iran to prevent militiamen from escaping or smuggling in ammunition and weapons, according to a senior security source in the city who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his remarks.

The US military refused to comment on this, citing "security reasons" during ongoing operations, while another spokesman, Col. Bill Buckner, said the Basra operation was Iraqi-led and that the US was providing "limited assistance" mainly in "intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and ... support aircraft."

The US military has regularly accused Iran of smuggling weapons into Iraq over this border, particularly armor-piercing bombs known as explosively formed penetrators (EFP) that have been blamed for the deaths of many US soldiers in Iraq.

"This is a major operation aimed at outlaws and removing all heavy weapons and explosives from the hands of militias inside the city. It has now escalated into fighting between the Iraqi Army and the Mahdi Army because they are resisting," the security official said by phone from Basra, a few hours after the start of the offensive dubbed "The Knights' Assault."

The Basra-based official said that fighting is now centered in Mahdi Army strongholds in the neighborhoods of Tamimiyah, Hayaniyah, and Five Miles, and that there was also fighting in the neighboring provinces of Nasiriyah and Maysan.

A curfew has also been imposed in Nasiriyah and other southern cities, such as Samawa and Kut, the scene of clashes involving the Mahdi Army over the past two weeks.

One Basra resident reached by phone said he was holed up at his office at the local branch of the ministry of trade, and described the sound of explosions and gunfire as "terrifying."

Two Iraqi Army battalions and five battalions of the National Police's quick-reaction force were dispatched to Basra, where an entire Army division is already stationed.

"The lawlessness is going on under religious or political cover along with oil, weapons, and drug smuggling. These outlaws found support from inside government institutions either willingly or by coercion ... turning Basra into a place where no citizen can feel secure for his life and property," said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in a statement read on state television, which reported that Mr. Maliki along with the ministers of defense and interior were all in Basra to oversee the operation.

The reaction from Sadr's camp was swift. At a press conference in the holy city of Najaf, three of the cleric's top lieutenants condemned the government offensive and accused Maliki, a Shiite, of carrying out a US agenda. They also threatened a nationwide campaign of protests and civil disobedience if US and Iraqi forces continued to fight the Mahdi Army.

Smith, the military spokesman, said the US would not stop this campaign if it remained peaceful.

One of the movement's leaders, Liwa Smaisim, described as "preposterous" US claims that it was only targeting splinter elements of the Mahdi Army.

Hazem al-Aaraji, another leader usually based in Baghdad, said the current fighting was a continuation of a campaign by the movement's Shiite rivals in the Iraqi government to finish it off – a drive it began last fall in southern Iraq.

Sadr's influence was felt throughout Baghdad Tuesday, highlighting the risk that the fight in Basra may spread to the capital, home to a large segment of his supporters. On Tuesday, witnesses reported that gun battles broke out in the capital's Sadr City district between the militia and rivals from the Badr Organization, which is part of Maliki's ruling Shiite coalition.

The offices of one of the branches of Maliki’s Dawa Party was torched in Sadr City, according to the US military.


On Monday evening, pickup trucks filled with chanting Mahdi militiamen, within sight of Iraqi forces, were forcing shopkeepers in many parts of Baghdad's west side to close in protest of US and Iraq Army raids.

On Tuesday, all shops in the Mahdi Army stronghold neighborhoods – Bayiaa, Iskan, Shuala, and Washash – were shuttered. Leaflets saying "No, no to America" were plastered on each storefront. Anti-American banners hung right next to Iraqi government checkpoints.

Several people interviewed in the Amel neighborhood said they were forced by militiamen to return home when they tried to go to work this morning. "This is anarchy," says Ali al-Yasseri.

• Awadh al-Taiee in Baghdad and a Najaf-based Iraqi journalist contributed reporting.


© 2008 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

The oil law and the situation in Basra

This is just a small excerpt from an article at Democracy Now. It gives a glimpse into the situation and conflict in the Basra area. No doubt violence could break out at any time.

RICK ROWLEY: But some opponents of the oil law still see Prime Minister Maliki as an American ally and worry that this current draft will lead to privatization and an American oil grab.


FALEH ABOOD UMARA: [translated] The law was written by the American administration, and it serves the American interest in Iraq.


RICK ROWLEY: Faleh Abood, head of the Southern Oil Workers’ Union, has led several strikes against the government.


FALEH ABOOD UMARA: [translated] We achieved many things. We were able to raise salaries and get workers pieces of land. But what made people oppose us was our opposition to the oil and gas law.


RICK ROWLEY: In fact, Oil Minister Shahristani used a Saddam-era law that the Americans left in place to declare the union illegal and has pledged to stop future strikes.


HUSSAIN AL-SHAHRISTANI: The law under Saddam was reinstated, so even after the fall of the regime, that was the law, and anybody who tries to disrupt oil production and export would be liable to government actions, because this would be considered as a sabotage of national economy.


RICK ROWLEY: Back in Basra, the political storm is growing around Governor al-Waili, whose party is linked to the Oil Workers’ Union. Prime Minister Maliki has called for his resignation, and charges of corruption, mismanagement and fraud are circulating in the press. The Iraqi newspaper Kitabat alleged that he skimmed $80 million from reconstruction contracts.


We leave the governor’s compound to try to see what normal Basrans think of this crisis, but the governor refuses to let us go without an escort of twelve heavily armed guards. One man is brave enough to speak to us, telling us that he has not seen any of the $340 million worth of projects the governor claims are 85% complete.


BASRAN MAN: [translated] There are no services, no reconstruction. There is a lot of fraud.


RICK ROWLEY: When asked about political parties in Basra, this man is too frightened to say anything more.


BASRAN MAN: [translated] I voted, but I’d rather not say.


RICK ROWLEY: After that interview, the governor was reluctant to let us talk to anyone else in Basra or to visit any of his reconstruction projects. Claiming it was for our security, he locked us in a house on his compound, surrounded by soldiers. We escaped once in hopes of doing more interviews on the street, but were spotted before we even left the compound and firmly escorted back to our quarters by armed men. After being held four more days, we were taken to the airport and flown back to Baghdad.

British Commander: Basra fight pointless

The politicians need to assign handlers to top commanders so that utterances can be cleared before they get uttered. It seems that many military people seem blissfully unaware that their role is not to say what they believe but what they ought to believe according to their political masters.


Basra fight pointless, says British commander
Gethin Chamberlain in southern Iraq
Last Updated: 2:02am GMT 28/10/2007




One of the most senior British commanders in Iraq has claimed that there is no point in fighting on in Basra, likening British troops in the city to "Robocop" and admitting that innocent people were hurt as a result of their actions.


On the ground with British troops in southern Iraq


The officer, who spoke to The Sunday Telegraph on condition of anonymity, said commanders had concluded that a military solution was no longer viable.

"We are tired of firing at people," he said. "We would prefer to find a political accommodation."

The officer, who is responsible for thousands of troops, said the decision to pull soldiers out of the centre of Basra last month came after commanders concluded that using Iraqi forces would be more effective. "We would go down there [Basra], dressed as Robocop, shooting at people if they shot at us, and innocent people were getting hurt," he said. "We don't speak Arabic to explain and our translators were too scared to work for us any more. What benefit were we bringing to these people?"

British forces have struck a deal with Shia militias to withdraw to a single base at the international airport in return for assurances that they will no longer be attacked.

Yesterday, former military commanders and politicians expressed outrage at the officer's comments.

Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said: "A lot of those who have served in Iraq will be disappointed and angry at being portrayed in this manner."

The former SAS deputy commander Clive Fairweather said he was appalled by the message coming out of Basra. "One wonders whether the Union Jack or the white flag should be flying over Basra airfield," he said.


Have your say

US ready to step into Basra as British withdraw.

If the US step into the Basra area there will be just more bloodshed and the need for more US troops in Iraq. However, the US will not be willing to sit back and see the southern oil fields fall into the wrong hands. Although neither of the two main groups fighting for control are pro-US.

US ready to step into Basra as British pull out
Posted 4 hours 38 minutes ago

The US military is ready to intervene in southern Iraq to quell any unrest as British forces prepare to pull out from their last base in the oil port of Basra, the Pentagon says.

Press reports in London suggest that the British departure and handover of security control to Iraqi forces may be imminent, although the official line is that it will take place before the end of the year.

US forces will not allow any security advances in southern Iraq to be abandoned, Brigadier General Richard Sherlock, deputy director for operational planning at the Department of Defence, told reporters.

As requirements on the ground dictate, "they will reposition forces with the battlefield geography in mind so that they don't give up gains that they've made in different areas, including in Basra and the south," he said.

"As the UK forces reposition ... all that will be taken into account as well as what the security needs for each region are," Sherlock said.

When the 500 British troops evacuate a former palace of Saddam Hussein in Basra and withdraw to a desert airbase, they will leave behind a city in the grip of a brutal turf war between rival militia.

-AFP

UK withdrawal from Basra

This article gives rather a rosy picture of Basra under the British. No doubt the city was on the whole less restive than Baghdad and other cities in US controlled areas but there were serious clashes including the arrest of British secret operatives and they were freed by blasting their jail, and there were many other clashes. Also, it was under UK jurisdiction that these factions built up their militas and infrastructure. The UK was not able to stop them. Now they have left they are just able to operate openly. The article fails to note that the UK occupation was in the first place just a way of Blair the lapdog pleasing his master Bush. He is now gone to the Mid-East yelping at the heels of the Palestinians trying to herd them toward peace talks.

As British Leave, Basra Deteriorates
Violence Rises in Shiite City Once Called a Success Story

By Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; A01



As British forces pull back from Basra in southern Iraq, Shiite militias there have escalated a violent battle against each other for political supremacy and control over oil resources, deepening concerns among some U.S. officials in Baghdad that elements of Iraq's Shiite-dominated national government will turn on one another once U.S. troops begin to draw down.

Three major Shiite political groups are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets. The city is plagued by "the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors," a recent report by the International Crisis Group said.

After Saddam Hussein was overthrown in April 2003, British forces took control of the region, and the cosmopolitan port city of Basra thrived with trade, arts and universities. As recently as February, Vice President Cheney hailed Basra as a part of Iraq "where things are going pretty well."

But "it's hard now to paint Basra as a success story," said a senior U.S. official in Baghdad with long experience in the south. Instead, it has become a different model, one that U.S. officials with experience in the region are concerned will be replicated throughout the Iraqi Shiite homeland from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. A recent series of war games commissioned by the Pentagon also warned of civil war among Shiites after a reduction in U.S. forces.

For the past four years, the administration's narrative of the Iraq war has centered on al-Qaeda, Iran and the sectarian violence they have promoted. But in the homogenous south -- where there are virtually no U.S. troops or al-Qaeda fighters, few Sunnis, and by most accounts limited influence by Iran -- Shiite militias fight one another as well as British troops. A British strategy launched last fall to reclaim Basra neighborhoods from violent actors -- similar to the current U.S. strategy in Baghdad -- brought no lasting success.

"The British have basically been defeated in the south," a senior U.S. intelligence official said recently in Baghdad. They are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as "surrounded like cowboys and Indians" by militia fighters. An airport base outside the city, where a regional U.S. Embassy office and Britain's remaining 5,500 troops are barricaded behind building-high sandbags, has been attacked with mortars or rockets nearly 600 times over the past four months.

Britain sent about 40,000 troops to Iraq -- the second-largest contingent, after that of the United States, at the time of the March 2003 invasion -- and focused its efforts on the south. With few problems from outside terrorists or sectarian violence, the British began withdrawing, and by early 2005 only 9,000 troops remained. British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced further drawdowns early this year before leaving office.

The administration has been reluctant to publicly criticize the British withdrawal. But a British defense expert serving as a consultant in Baghdad acknowledged in an e-mail that the United States "has been very concerned for some time now about a) the lawless situation in Basra and b) the political and military impact of the British pullback." The expert added that this "has been expressed at the highest levels" by the U.S. government to British authorities.

The government of new Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pointed to the current relative calm in three of the region's four provinces -- barring Basra -- as evidence of success. According to one British official, Brown told President Bush when they met last week at Camp David that Britain hopes to turn Basra over to Iraqi control in the next few months. Although a further drawdown of its forces is likely, Britain will coordinate its remaining presence with Washington after an assessment in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq.

As it prepares to take control of Basra, the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has dispatched new generals to head the army and police forces there. But the warring militias are part of factions in the government itself, including radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- whose Mahdi Army is believed responsible for most of the recent attacks on the airport compound -- as well as the Fadhila, or Islamic Virtue Party, and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the country's largest Shiite party.

In March, Fadhila pulled out of Maliki's ruling alliance of Shiite parties in Baghdad after it lost control of the petroleum ministry to the Supreme Council. Last week, under pressure from the council, Maliki fired the Fadhila governor of Basra. Fadhila has refused to relinquish power over the governate or over Basra's lucrative oil refineries, calling the Maliki government "the new Baath" -- a reference to Hussein's Sunni-led political party -- and appealed the dismissal to Iraq's constitutional court.

Jockeying for political power in Baghdad has long since translated into shooting battles in Basra. The militias have shifted alliances with one another, as well as with the British and with Iran as they fight for control of neighborhoods and resources. With the escalation of street battles and assassinations, much of the population is confined to homes and is fearful of Islamic rules imposed by militias.

Although neighbor Iran's presence is pervasive -- with cultural influence, humanitarian aid, arms and money -- U.S. officials and outside experts think that the Iraqi parties are using Iran more than vice versa. Iraqis in the south have long memories of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, one U.S. official said, and when a southern Shiite "wants to tar someone, they call them an Iranian." He said the United States is "always very concerned about Iranian influence, as well we should be, but there is a difference between influence and control. It would be very difficult for the Iranians to establish control."

The ICG study described Iran, Britain and the United States as equally confused about what is happening in Basra. During a recent visit there, the U.S. official said, he was unable to meet with any local Iraqis outside the airport base or to travel beyond the secured route between the base and the palace. About 200 Americans are in and around the city, including those assigned to the embassy office, some civilian support personnel and contract security guards.

Basra's "security nightmare" has already had devastating effects on Iraq's economy, said Juan Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan. Home to two-thirds of Iraq's oil resources, Basra is the country's sole dependable outlet for exporting oil, with a capacity of 1.8 million barrels a day. Much of Basra's violence is "over who gets what cut from Iraq's economic resources," a U.S. Army strategist in Iraq said.

Militias and criminal gangs are financed in part by stolen oil smuggled outside the country, even as Iraq lacks enough energy to provide electricity to many of its people. Both the oil industry and the port facilities -- providing Iraq's only maritime access -- have made Basra "a significant prize for local political actors," the ICG said.

The current U.S. security operation to "clear, hold and build" in Baghdad and its surroundings is almost a replica of Operation Sinbad, which British and Iraqi forces conducted in Basra from September 2006 to March of this year with a mission of "clear, hold and civil reconstruction." Although Operation Sinbad initially succeeded in lowering crime and political assassinations, attacks rose in the spring and British forces withdrew into their compounds.

In the early years of Iraq's occupation, British officials often disdained the U.S. use of armored patrols and heavily protected troops. The British approach of lightly armed foot patrols -- copied from counterinsurgency operations in Northern Ireland -- sought to avoid antagonizing the local population and encourage cooperation. A 2005 report by the defense committee of the House of Commons commended the British army's performance and urged the Ministry of Defense to "use its influence" to get the Americans to take a less aggressive approach.

In a recent BBC interview, Air Chief Marshal Jock Stirrup, chief of the British defense staff, insisted that Basra has been a success. But he acknowledged that judgment depended on "what your interpretation of the mission was in the first place," adding: "I'm afraid people had, in many instances, unrealistic aspirations."

The mission, he said, was simply to "get the place and the people to a state where Iraqis could run this part of the country, if they chose to."

British Artillery attack in Basra causes fire.

British strike causes Basra blaze Sat Aug 4, 2:42 PM ET

So if fire is identified as coming from an area it is OK to use artillery. This is bound to cause an increase in civilian casualties as well as considerable property damage. Iraq is filled with ruined buildings it seems.



BASRA, Iraq (AFP) - British artillery fire on Saturday slammed into a disused oil facility in Iraq's southern city of Basra, causing an extensive blaze and sending thick black smoke into the air, the military said.



The strike was ordered after militiamen attacked a joint coordination centre used by British and Iraqi forces in the city, and their firing point was identified, British military spokesman Major Mike Shearer told AFP.

"This afternoon, the multi-national force in the southeast returned fire against a rogue militia following an indirect fire attack on a provisional joint coordination centre in Basra," he said.

"The multi-national force fire hit a disused oil facility that subsequently caught fire," Shearer said, suggesting that "residual oil left in the area" might explain the severity of the blaze.

"A decision to use artillery fire in this part of the city is not taken lightly. We identified a rogue militia firing point that was used for the attack. As a result we took the most appropriate course of action," he said.

Major Rafaa Mohammed of Basra's local police said a fire had broken out at a warehouse next to an oil products company following a British attack.

"A large fire broke out at a warehouse next to an oil products company. Fire fighters are now trying to extinguish the fire," he told AFP.